Abby Epplett, Historian

Back in September, I visited Beauport, the Sleeper-McCann House , a Historic New England (HNE) property located on the waterfront of Gloucester, MA. On the younger side of properties owned by HNE, American interior designer Henry Davis Sleeper constructed the eclectically decorated mansion in 1907. He continually renovated the building for twenty-seven years until his death in 1934, when the McCann family purchased the house and left it mostly unchanged. Ownership of the property passed to HNE in 1942 and has been a museum for over eighty years. The winding passages of Sleeper’s dream home boast an astonishing array of antiques, fine art, and remarkable design choices.

A first in my experience with Historic New England properties, I visited Cogswell’s Grant both in-person in Essex, MA on September 24, 2022 and virtually during a members-only tour held via Zoom webinar on February 15, 2023 at 6:00 p.m. Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places , early American art and furniture collectors Bertram & Nina Little revitalized the 165-acre property with the 1728 farmhouse for use as a summer residence and a storage facility for their many antiques.

The fifth and final installment of the 2023 season of Valley Talks, sponsored by the Museum of Work in Culture of the Rhode Island Historical Society (RIHS) , was held via Zoom on Sunday, March 5 at 1:30 p.m. Writer Melody Desjardins, who runs the blog Moderne Franco: All about the Franco-American Experience , presented “Visualizing Franco-American Culture Through French-Canadian Folklore” , describing the music, dance, folktales, and costumes of French culture in North America from the 16 th century to the present day. Desjardins began her talk with a definition of folklore. She explained that “folk” referred to country people from an idealized, agrarian past where humans were more connected to nature, while “lore” are stories intended to be passed along to future generations. Desjardins also spoke about “visual culture”, the concept that part of what makes a heritage unique are the elements seen by those both within and outside of the group. Visual heritage includes clo...

On Thursday, March 2 at 7:00 p.m., Dr. Megan Kate Nelson kicked off the 2023 season of Parked at Home , a series of Zoom webinars hosted by Blackstone River Valley National Historic Park . Dr. Nelson gave a talk on her new book, Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America , published by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster , in 2022. Park ranger Mark Mello acted as the moderator for the session, reviewing the history of BRVNHP and the motivation behind the parked at home series before sharing a clip from Ken Burns’ documentary National Parks: America’s Best Idea . Dr. Nelson’s new perspective about the creation of Yellowstone was inspired by her previous book, The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West , which received numerous accolades for its explanations on the effects of the American Civil War and Reconstruction period. She shared a map demonstrating the size of Yellowstone ,...

During the month of February, which has been designated as Black History Month since 1976, the online learning platform Masterclass hosted the video series Black History, Black Freedom, and Black Love: Lessons from Influential Black Voices . Seven speakers led this remarkable, three-part series, focusing on the past, present, and future of Black Americans. The class spanned across 54 videos, totaling 10 hours and 47 minutes of screen time, and broached a staggering number of topics, including: Democracy, Elections, & Voting Rights The Constitution, especially the 13 th , 14 th , and 15 th Amendments The Plantation, Enslavement, & Emancipation The Civil War and Reconstruction Linguistics and Black English Segregation in Education & Historically Black Colleges / Universities (HBCUs) Redlining & Housing The Prison-Industrial Complex & Policing The 1619 Project, Critical Rac...

On February 28, 2023 at 7:00 p.m., I attended a Zoom talk hosted by Rhode Island Historical Society and focused on the recently published book Black Greys and Colored Giants: A Comprehensive Guide to Black Baseball in Rhode Island, 1870-1949 by Robert Cvornyek , who is professor emeritus and former chair of the History Department at Rhode Island College , along with a professor at Florida State University Panama City . The talk took the form of a conversation moderated by Richard J. Ring , Deputy Executive Director for Collections and Interpretation at Rhode Island Historical Society since 2017 . Cvornyek explained that he wrote the book after researching Black baseball in Rhode Island for over twenty years, starting in the early 2000s. He interviewed men who played baseball in the late 1940s, along with their families, and learned that “Baseball is a critical lens to understand African American history.” He originally planned to donate all his research materials to RIHS...

Besides many great museums and historic houses in Newbury and Newburyport, some of which I will explore during my next trip to the Essex National Heritage Area , I visited several quick history stops along the Newburyport Harborwalk & Clipper City Rail Trail . The Custom House Maritime Museum is located along the route, along with sculptures from New England artists, lighthouses, and signage describing historical events and buildings in the area.

The fourth stop on my trip to the Newbury and Newburyport area was Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm , a Historic New England (HNE) property on the National Register of Historic Places with a late 17 th century house and a 230-acre farm, including a flock of animals supported by Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) , which has partnered with HNE since 2003. The property is adjacent to Bay Circuit Trail & Greenway , a “230+ mile, multi-use trail in Greater Boston” according to its website. The farmhouse itself has been a museum since 1992 after a six year, over $1 million restoration project. In the previous three hundred years, the property was owned by multiple distinct families, on a few of which lent their names to the house.

Rhode Island Historical Society hosted Valley Talk #4 from its 2023 series via Zoom on Sunday, February 19 at 1:30 p.m. The talk, titled “B’nai Israel: Woonsocket’s Gorgeous but Little-Known Synagogue” , featured historian George M. Goodwin as the main speaker. Goodwin was a former president of the Rhode Island Jewish Historical Association and has edited multiple publications. He spent most of the talk describing synagogues and other places of worship around Rhode Island, New England, and the world, accompanying his detailed descriptions with beautiful images. He finished with information about B’nai Israel in Woonsocket, RI. The entire talk with question and answer session took just under 90 minutes. Touro Synagogue of Newport, RI The oldest extant synagogue in North America is Touro Synagogue of Newport, RI , constructed in 1763 by British-American architect Peter Harrison . Harrison introduced the Palladian style of architecture to the Americas, with buildings ba...

My third stop on my trip to the Newbury and Newburyport area was Coffin House , a Historic New England (HNE) property just down the street from Swett-Ilsley House . For over three hundred years, this building was home to the Coffins, a Quaker family whose numerous descendants include abolitionist and women’s rights activist Lucretia Coffin Mott . The guide described the family as being so numerous that a descendent will be on a tour almost every day, travelling from as close by as Nantucket to as far away as Samoa.

On Wednesday, February 15, 2023, Yale Forest Forum (part of the Yale School of the Environment ) and Orion Magazine presented “A Tree’s View of History: A Conversation with Lacy M. Johnson” via Zoom webinar. Johnson is an experienced writer from the greater Houston area. In 2022, she published the book More City than Water: A Houston Flood Atlas with co-editor Cheryl Beckett of the University of Houston through University of Texas Press. More recently, she wrote the essay “The Brutal Legacy of the Longleaf Pine” for Orion , connecting longleaf pine farm to slavery in the United States. The notice of this talk, which I received via email from the Atlantic Black Box project , caught my attention immediately, since I know a lot about longleaf pines my time as a park ranger at Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas , where longleaf pines grow in abundance thanks to conservation efforts . The talk was moderated by Mary Evelyn Tucker , founder of the Yale Forum on Religion ...

Earlier today, I joined Historic New England’s Arnold House in celebrating the 214 th birthday of 16 th United States president Abraham Lincoln . I last visited Arnold House for a formal tour in July 2022 , where I learned all about its construction methods as a post-medieval, late 17 th century home. The house is located in the Great Road Historic District of Lincoln, RI , a town named in honor of Honest Abe, although he never visited this part of Rhode Island. The celebration, which was free and open to the public, included a more personalized version of the regular tour, an adorable cutout of the man himself holding festive party balloons, and a tasty birthday cake with Country Time lemonade.

As the second stop on my trip to Newbury and Newburyport, I visited Swett-Ilsley House , a property of Historic New England (HNE) . Constructed as a one-room house by Stephen Swett in 1670 and greatly expanded in its 350 years, this house was the first historic building purchased by William Sumner Appleton, Jr. , founder of what is now HNE. Conveniently located down the road from another HNE property, Coffin House , the Swett-Ilsley House served many purposes during its long existence and still serves as a rental property, along with a museum. Like other house museums in 17 th century buildings, the house is considered a study property, with additions from later periods stripped away and very little reproduction furniture in the space.

In mid September 2022, I took a day trip to the Newbury and Newburyport area in Massachusetts, part of the Essex National Heritage Area and North of Boston . My first stop was the Custom House Maritime Museum in Newburyport. The 1834 Neoclassical stone building was designed by architect Robert Mills , who also laid out the plans for the Custom House in New Bedford and multiple famous buildings in Washington, D.C. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1971 for its former use as a United States custom house, making it a crucial part of the transatlantic trade system in the mid 19 th and early 20 th century. The custom house ceased operation in 1911, and the building fell into disrepair until its restoration by the Newburyport Maritime Society from 1972 to 1975. In late 2018, the building was official sold to the Society by the now-dissolved Newburyport Redevelopment Authority .

During my trip to the Christian Science Plaza in Boston during late May of 2022, I learned that the Longyear Museum , established by Christian Scientist Mary Hawley Beecher Longyear in 1937, owns a collection of houses important to the life of Mary Baker Eddy . As described with greater detail in my previous blog, Mrs. Eddy (as she is called on the Longyear website) founded or “discovered” the religion of Christian Science . Docents at these houses chronicle her life and explain her contributions to their beliefs.

Founded in 1897 as a place to collect the history of the rapidly changing industrial city of Lynn, MA , the museum in the Downtown Cultural District houses the community art galleries of LynnArts on the first floor and the artifact-based exhibits of Lynn Historical Society on the second floor. Set in an area described as “one of Massachusetts’ best kept secrets” by Mass Cultural Council , this perfectly sized museum is a quick visit to give a comprehensive overview of life in the so-called city of sin since its settlement by European colonists in 1629.

Last September, I visited Boardman House in Saugus, MA, a study house museum owned and operated by Historic New England since 1911, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1966. Like other 17 th century buildings maintained as study homes, Boardman House had minimal furniture. The excellent guide allowed to stand in the fireplaces and explore the attic and basement.

“A History of Worcester in 10 Maps” was created in part of the Worcester Tercentennial, a celebration of the city’s 300 th anniversary . As noted in the Storymap , a popular interactive map viewer powered by ArcGIS , Worcester was founded in 1722 by English colonists and grew to become the second largest city in New England, after Boston. The visual history begins with an early woodcut map of New England from 1677, before the founding of the town, and ends with the current Geographic Information System (GIS) map created by the City of Worcester . Each segment contains a link back to the original source of the map. The sources are a fantastic collection of digital resources for Massachusetts artifacts and include: Massachusetts Historical Society Archives of the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts CURIOSity Digital Collections at the Harvard Library Digital Commonwealth ...

On January 22 at 1:30 p.m. was the second presentation via Zoom in the 2023 Valley Talks series hosted by the Museum of Work & Culture in Woonsocket, RI . Leading the presentation was Alex Hold , the Executive Director of International House of Rhode Island , and Andrea Flores , the Vartan Gregorian Assistant Professor of Education at Brown University .

In September 2022, I visited Portsmouth, New Hampshire and discovered many Quick History Stops around the city. Part 4 in this four part mini-series features features Haven Park and a statue to Fitz John Porter, Portsmouth Fire Department and the Vigilance memorial, Portsmouth Athenaeum, and City of Portsmouth informational signage.

On January 18, I listened to “The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World”, a talk given by Dr. Kara Cooney , a professor of Egyptian Art and Architecture at UCLA , which was hosted by the Northern Alabama chapter of the  Archeological Institute of America (AIA) . Cooney hosted Out of Egypt on the Discovery channel in 2009 and published the book The Good Kings in 2021, which covered the reign of five Egyptian kings. Cooney focused on three of these kings during her talk: Khufu Akhenaten, and Ramesses II. Cooney emphasized a key difference between the Greek and Roman empires versus the Egyptian dynasties. While Greeks and Romans divinized rulers after death, setting up emperors like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Marcus Aurelius to become gods, the Egyptians divinized rulers during their lifetimes. Cooney noted how Americans “divinize” their favorite presidents like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and John Fitzgerald Kenne...

On January 18 at 4:00 p.m., the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) in Worcester, Massachusetts presented “ Herald of Freedom : Perspectives from the Collection” via Zoom. The program centered around the rediscovery of two editions of Peter Humphries Clark’s paper Herald of Freedom , an abolitionist newspaper owned by an African American socialist, within the society’s collection back in June 2022 . Since then, the newspapers have been digitized and are on display through the AAS website . Embedded below is the issue from June 2, 1855 (Volume 1, Number 1). The talk began with a video from by Vincent Golden , the newspaper and periodicals curator at AAS, who described the discovery of the newspapers. Golden explained how libraries have backlogs of unprocessed material and are often not sure exists in the collection. He was searching through a backlog from before 2002 and found two issues of the rare newspaper. Research led Golden to the biography America’s First Bl...